The List
by Blue Buick R
Summary: Jayne takes a job from a mysterious contact the results are quite…naughty.


Author: Blue Buick R  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Jayne takes a job from a mysterious contact; the results are quite…naughty.  
Warnings: Complete and utter lunacy. Some rather senseless carnage and killing (it is Jayne after all), but other than that I don't want to spoil anything.  
Notes: I wrote this as I stayed home from work with a migraine; I completely blame the pain meds. Comments appreciated.

Malcolm Reynolds, busy cataloguing their meager haul, hardly spared a glanced toward Serenity's bay doors as the mechanism kicked in and the screech of metal upon metal echoed through the bay; an icy cold gust of air rushing into the space eliciting an involuntary shiver.

There was quiet for a moment, then the sound of boot falls upon the steel grating. The footsteps stopped not far from Mal, but the captain kept his attention focused on inventory until a heavy thump rattled his skull, and something heavy landed on his foot. He casually looked down at the large duffle bag sitting on the toe of his boot, raising both his eyes and a questioning eyebrow at the man beside him.

"Go on," Jayne said, his face still ruddy from the cold, a mean smirk on his chapped lips.

Curious despite himself, Mal squatted down and zipped open the bag. He noticed the smell first, sweet and bitter at the same time, wafting up to tease his nostrils. Eyebrow making a second journey up his forehead, he up-ended the sack, watching as brick after brick of what appeared to be genuine, grade A chocolate, tumbled out and onto the floor.

"Qingwa cao de liumang!" Mal swore, pawing through the pile of bars for a moment, before straightening and fixing his mercenary with a fierce scowl. "What the hell is this?" he exclaimed. "You hold up a candy store?"

Jayne scowled back. "Hardly."

"Then I ask again, what the hell is this?"

"Payment," was all Jayne would offer.

Mal didn't like the sound of that, not one bit. "Payment for what?" he asked suspiciously.

Jayne shrugged. "A job."

Mal could feel his eyes nearly bug out at that. "A jo…" he shook his head. "So help me Jayne you better start making some gorram sense or I will beat you to death with one of these bricks"

The larger man held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright, just take it easy Mal. You see I was at this bar last night and…"

--------

Jayne took another sip of his drink, grimacing the moment it touched his tongue. The stuff was as warm as horse piss, and probably tasted like it too. Closing his eyes he tilted his head back and downed what was left in the glass as quickly as possible; not willing to linger over it, but also not willing to do without it all together. Repressing a shudder, he sat back in his seat and opened his watering eyes only to jump in surprise, his gun finding its way into his hand at the sight of the hooded figure sitting across from him.

"Shen-sheng de gao-wan," he growled, "you wanna get shot?"

"Not particularly," the hooded figure replied, his voice high and lispy, so much so that Jayne figured he was using a voice modifier of some sort.

"Then you don't go sneaking up on people in a place like this!"

"I'll keep that in mind," was the reply, the amount of dryness such a high voice could convey surprising.

"Well what the hell do you want from me, if not to get shot?" Jayne asked, forcing himself to relax back into his seat, but keeping his gun un-holstered and in his hand.

"I have a job that needs doing and I was told you might be the right man for it."

Jayne frowned. "Oh yeah, who told you?"

"That's not important," squeaky waved a thick mittened hand in front of himself in dismissal. "What's important is that it is low risk, high reward."

THAT got Jayne's attention right quick. "Reward huh? What kind of money we talking about here?"

A most disconcerting chuckle emanated from the dark reassesses of the hood. "I'm not talking about money."

Jayne scoffed, picking up his glass and bringing to his lips before he realized it was already empty. "Not interested," he breathed into the glass, his voice reverberating slightly.

"Some rewards are better than money, Mr…." the voice trailed off.

"Reynolds," Jayne supplied.

"Mr. Reynolds."

Jayne looked into the blackness of the cowl, straining his eyes to see a face but failing. "Like what?" he finally asked incredulously. "Women, diamonds, weapons?"

The mitten suddenly disappeared inside the folds of the cloak and Jayne perked up, steadying his grip and aiming his gun back toward his companion in cautious paranoia.

Something was tossed on the table between them and Jayne risk a quick glance down to see what it was.

A bar of chocolate.

He looked back toward his solicitor. "You got to be shitting me."

"On the contrary," the voice sounded amused. "You do this one little favour for me and I can guarantee twenty pounds worth of these…all unmarked, all prime ingredients (no substitutes), and each one worth its weight in gold."

Jayne thought it over for a moment, then picked up the bar and tore open one corner of the wrapper with his teeth before taking a small bite. It melted instantly on his tongue, the bitterness cleansing his palate of the gou shi liquor's aftertaste. Taking a deep breath, the aroma of chocolate circulating from his mouth to his nose, he tossed the bar back onto the table with a thwack.

"Ten pounds up front, another ten when the jobs done," he offered. "And your name."

"Ester. Ester Bonny."

--------

Mal shook his head. "And you didn't find it strange that this mysterious Ester Bonny was offering to pay you in bulk chocolate."

Jayne crossed his arms. "A bit at the time. But he's right about one thing Mal, this is the real deal and worth a small fortune."

Mal bit his lip and this, mulling it over, before snapping, "what are you doing accepting jobs on your own?"

"I was on leave!" Jayne defended himself. "It was my own damn time and you never said I couldn't make any supplementary income if I ever had the chance."

Mal bared his teeth. "Well I am now."

Jayne huffed. "Fine. But at the time there weren't no such restrictions upon my valuable services, sos I took the job."

"Which was what exactly?" he asked wearily, not sure he wanted to know.

"Nothing big. Just a little shake down. I'm guessing Bonny and this old fart are some sort of business rivals and…"

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Jayne crawled on his belly in the snow, his rifle and supplies strapped to his back, ice crystals forming on his eyelashes and around the mouth of his balaclava…the moisture from his breath making it damp and clammy against his lips. Through the copse of pine trees he could make out the quaint little cabin, right where Bonny said it would be. Bringing out his binoculars he scouted out the area, marking the barn and what he was told was a workshop. He noted the security sensor on top of the tall red and white stripped post in the center of the lot, making it as his first priority.

Un-slinging his rifle he screwed on the silencer and took up position, piling up a small hill of packed snow in front of him to rest the barrel. Taking a few deep, lung cramping breaths, he took careful aim through the scope and squeezed off a round at the ball on the top of the poll. As soon as it shattered with a pop Jayne was up and moving down the hill and toward the property, throwing the rifle back over his shoulder and sliding his pistol out of its holster.

Making it to the barn without running into anyone, he pressed his back against the rough board and peeked through one grimy window. He could see the stalls, what looked to be eight in all, each won holding a funny looking deer. They had long heads and large antlers, with stocky grey bodies. They were an odd choice for livestock, but he supposed on an icy planet such as this one you couldn't very well raise cattle all that well, and these critters looked built for the environment.

What most caught his attention, however, was the sight of a few midgets minding the animals. There were two of them, all decked out in green uniforms, with crazy hats and pointy boots. Jayne couldn't figure why someone would want to hire dwarves as help, other than the fact that they might be cheaper to feed than your average hand. Shrugging his shoulders he put the pointless question out of his head and sidled up toward the door, he had a job to do after all.

Kicking his way into the barn he had both the element of surprise as well as his superior size to his advantage, easily subduing the shocked midgets. The first went down with a cold cock to the back of the head, while he tossed the other into the wall after he tried to bite Jayne on the hand. Not wanting to waste ammo or make a ruckus he opted not to take care of the deer with a bullet, but instead located a convenient ax which would do just as well. One blow between the eyes, just like he remembered the cattle farmers back home doing, and he was done lickity split; then it was out of the barn and back around the house to the work shop.

Jayne didn't even bother taking a look to see what kind of operation they were running out here, breaking a few windows he simply lit and tossed a few pre-made molotovs through and moved back out of sight to watch. It didn't take long before smoke was billowing, flames beginning to leap up and out. More midgets appeared, scores of them fleeing the burning building, shrieking.

Moments later Jayne's primary objective made an appearance. The fat old man came barreling out of the cottage, throwing on his rich red and gold full length coat with fur trim. With duds like that Jayne figured organized crime for sure. Slipping up behind the man he grabbed him in a choke hold, pistol pressed to his temple, and dragged him further into the shadows of the house.

Shoving him against a wall, Jayne growled, "keep your hands where I can see them old timer."

The geezer's plump round face burned scarlet, his white beard bristling. "How dare you! What is the meaning of this?"

"Just a little message, I was told you would know from who," Jayne recited his lines.

The old man's face went stony. "I should have known. This is exactly the type of thing I should expect from that bucked tooth, hyped up, animal. Hiring some thug to do his dirty work for him. Burning down my workshop!"

"Slaughtering your livestock," Jayne couldn't resist adding after that thug remark.

Sharp blue eyes widened. "Barbaric, although hardly surprising from someone who eats his own children."

"I don't know nothin' about nothin'," Jayne offered. "I just do what I'm paid to do."

The old fella looked at Jayne intently. "And you were paid to kill my deer, burn down my work shop and threaten me with a gun?"

"Yup."

"Do you even know who you're dealing with, young man?" the voice was cold.

Jayne shrugged. "Don't rightly care. You're not the first back water muckity-muck I've crossed."

"Oh my reach extends far beyond this world. I have a list Jayne Cobb, and now you're on it…on the wrong end that is."

Jayne scoffed until he realized the fat old bag of wind knew his name.

"How'd you…" he trailed off as he watched a smug look steal over the weathered face. Screw it, he thought, and brought his knee up and between the man's legs, while dropping his elbow down hard on his back once he was doubled over. Leaving him there to gasp curled up in the snow, Jayne high tailed it out of there and back toward the cover of the pines. He had some payment to pick up.

--------

Mal let out a heavy sigh. "How'd the hell did he know your name?"

"I don't rightly know," Jayne answered puzzled. "I've never seen the guy before, and I had the balaclava on the whole time, there's no way he could have recognized me."

"And now you're on his list," Mal clarified.

"Apparently," Jayne replied, stooping down to start packing the bricks of chocolate back into the bag. "Won't be the first time I'm sure."

No, Mal though, Jayne Cobb was definitely the type of person to find himself on someone's list. Yesu, he was on Mal's.

"Just don't make a habit of terrorizing old men for candy, alright, Jayne," Mal added before he turned to leave.

"Alright, Mal," Jayne agreed, thinking he was lucky Mal didn't say nothing about sly young thieves. Ester had been so impressed by Jayne's work that he offered him another twenty pounds if he would introduce his fist to some guy's mouth. A petty thief who liked to break and enter, went by the name of the Fairy. Jayne was to beat on the guy a bit, and would get a bonus for each tooth he broke. Ester said something about irony. Jayne didn't know what broken teeth had to do with wrinkled clothes but he didn't much care as long as he got paid.

The end

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